Friday, February 27, 2015

The blog is going to be heavily Bond-focused this year leading up to SPECTRE, but there's no way I'm ignoring the other, even bigger year-end movie. I've got thoughts about a series of Star Wars posts, but while those are percolating how about we kick things off with another giant questionnaire? I did one of these a few years ago and also recently talked about many of my Star Wars feelings on Nerd Lunch, but there are some different questions in this one, so let's go again.

Thanks to Kelly Sedinger for finding this and posting his answers. Like Kelly, I find some of the questions inappropriate for various reasons. The ones that are inappropriate for practical reasons (the questionnaire was created before the announcement of Episode 7, which makes some questions moot), I'll figure out a way to answer anyway. The one that's just disgusting, I'm gonna skip.

1. Which film is your favorite of the Original Trilogy?

Star Wars. I know that Empire Strikes Back is the technically superior film, but it has two major problems. One is that Joss Whedon is right and it's not a complete movie. The other is that Vader being Luke's dad - while an okay idea in itself - is clearly pulled from someone's butt and not at all supported by anything in the first film. Star Wars, on the other hand, is a satisfying movie all on its own. It introduces and opens up a galaxy that absolutely I want to come back to and explore, but I want more because Star Wars fires my imagination; not because it promises to resolve plot points.

2. If you enjoy the prequels, which one is your favorite?

I do enjoy the prequels; at least parts of them. Their issues get bigger as the trilogy progresses, but I like more about Phantom Menace than I don't and it's my favorite of them. Qui-Gon, Darth Maul, the podracing scene, the final lightsaber duel, and John Williams' "Battle of the Fates" all make it worth watching.

3. How old were you when Episode 1 came out?

32

4. Which of the movies have you seen in the theater?

All of them.

5. Did you go to any of them on opening night?

All of the prequels. Maybe Return of the Jedi? Jedi would have been the first one where I was old enough to drive myself to the theater, but I don't have a specific memory of seeing it on opening night.

6. Who is your favorite character from the Original Trilogy?

Chewbacca. Sometimes I want it to be Han, but I don't especially like his character arc and Chewie is consistently awesome. I love the monster-with-a-big-heart archetype and Chewie is one of the best of those. I also love the dichotomy between his fearsome appearance and his inherent cowardice, and how his fierce loyalty to his friends always leads him to overcome the latter.

7. Who is your favorite character from the prequels, if you have one?

Qui-Gon. He's gone too soon, but that might be to his advantage. If Revenge of the Sith didn't exist, my favorite would be Padme, but the trilogy loses her by the end. Qui-Gon on the other hand impresses me and then gets out of the story. He pushes a lot of buttons in my psyche, starting with the conflict between his faithfulness to the Jedi way and his questioning of its leadership.

8. Have you read any of the books or comics?

Lots; especially early on. Publishers eventually got to a point where they were producing them faster than I could read them, so I gave up. But for quite a while I kept up and loved it.

9. Favorite book or series? Favorite SW author?

Very hard to choose, but I think I'm going to have to go with AC Crispin’s Han Solo Trilogy (The Paradise Snare, The Hutt Gambit, and Rebel Dawn). It not only fills in more details of Han’s early life (how he became an outlaw, how he met Chewie, etc.), but also includes as part of its backstory some of my nostalgic favorites: Brian Daley’s Han Solo Adventures (Han Solo at Stars’ End, Han Solo’s Revenge, and Han Solo and the Lost Legacy)and the weird, but entertaining Lando Calrissian Adventures by L Neil Smith.

So Crispin might be my favorite of the EU writers, but I have to acknowledge Timothy Zahn of course for writing the excellent Thrawn trilogy and single-handedly reviving everyone's interest in Star Wars.

10. Favorite comic?

As goofy as it was - and maybe because it was so goofy - Marvel's run. Especially the issues between Star Wars and Empire. I also have a lot of fondness for the newspaper strips written by Archie Goodwin. They covered that same time period between Star Wars and Empire, which is apparently my favorite.

11. Favorite character from the Expanded Universe (EU)?

I so want to say Jaxxon. Okay, I'm saying Jaxxon.

12. Favorite villain from the EU?

Mosep Binneed, Jabba's accountant, though at the time of his introduction he was introduced as Jabba himself. When Jabba first appeared in the Marvel series, he hadn't yet appeared on film and no one knew what he looked like, so Carmine Infantino made up his own version. Later on, that was retconned and Infantino's version became an entirely different character, but I actually prefer the slimmer, more active take on the character.

13. If you had your own ship from the Star Wars Universe (SWU), what would it be? It could be a mash-up/ugly.

A YT-1300 light freighter, naturally.

14. Would you rather be Sith or Jedi?

Jedi. They're not my favorite aspect of the Star Wars universe, but I do find their philosophy interesting. There's a lot of it I disagree with (and that's the direction I'm thinking about for a series of posts), but it's vastly better than Sith philosophy.

15. Would you rather be a Rebel or a member of the Imperial Navy? What would your role be?

Rebel. Preferably of the Han/Chewie/Lando variety: an independent agent working to further the cause rather than a cog in the military machine.

This is where the questions start getting weird and inappropriate for me. If I wasn't an old, married dude, I wouldn't have a problem with it, but I am old and married and I don't really think about fiction that way anymore. Younger, single me would have picked humans though.

18. If you could date/marry any character from the SWU who would you pick?

Same disclaimer, but Younger Single Me would have gone for Padme.

19. If you were going to bone just one Star Wars character and you never had to see them again, who would you pick?

There's no way for me to answer this question without feeling totally gross about myself, so on to the next one.

Not really. If I did, they'd be actual props from the movies and not replicas. Like Vader's helmet from Empire or the chess board from the Falcon.

28. Are there items that are not made but that you wish were made? What are they?

A working Millenium Falcon?

29. Did Han shoot first?

30. Did Boba Fett, in your opinion, ever leave the Sarlacc or did he die there?

He totally left.

31. Are there things about the movies you wish you could change? If so, name three.

The prequels are too easy targets for this question, so I'll stick to the original trilogy.

1) Boba Fett's death. I really don't mind that he died; it's how he died that's so underwhelming.

2) The Ewok battle. Again, I don't mind that they were able to defeat the Imperial forces, but a lot of the way they did it was ridiculous. Giant smashy logs are awesome, but slingshots with rocks are totally lame.

3) Luke and Leia as siblings. That should've been my first answer. Stupidest plot twist ever.

32. Which era would you want to live in?

The Rebellion. In many ways it's the toughest era, but it's also the most exciting to me. That could be nostalgia talking though.

33. What SW games have you played?

Not many video games except for some early Atari ones, but I ran a long campaign of the West End Games RPG. The players were all interested in playing bad guys and I fought against that for a while, but finally gave in. I let them go back in time and change the universe so that the Empire defeated the Rebellion, Luke Skywalker was killed, and Leia became Vader's apprentice. They really enjoyed it and it was an interesting way to play in that universe.

34. Do you play/own Star Wars Miniatures?

Nope.

35. Favorite SW costume for men?

Darth Vader.

36. Favorite SW costume for women?

Padme.

37. Have you ever dressed up as a SW character? Who/When/Why?

Halloween 1977.

38. Do you ever have SW sex fantasies? If so, have you ever acted them out?

Nope and nope.

39. Do you Ship any SW characters who aren’t together? Who/why?

I do, actually. Qui-Gon and Shmi.

40. Have you ever written SW fan fiction? Can we read it?

I have, actually. In 5th grade, we had to write a short story and I worked Threepio and Artoo into mine. I think I still have it somewhere, so maybe one day I'll transcribe it for the blog.

41. Have you been to a Celebration or plan on going to one?

Nah. I'm not hardcore enough anymore.

42. Have you ever been to Star Wars Weekends at Walt Disney World?

Nope. I love Disney World, but not when it's that crowded.

43. Do you wish they had Star Wars Weekends at Disneyland?

Sure. I've never been to Disneyland, but I'm sure there are many fans on that coast who would like that.

44. Best section you’ve experienced on Star Tours?

I've only ridden Star Tours a couple of times and don't remember much about the sections. What I do remember though is that the last time we went Diane was identified as the Rebel who kicked the whole chase into motion, which was pretty awesome.

45. What initially brought you to the SW fandom?

My dad. My brothers and I had a passing interest in Star Trek and Dad had heard that Star Wars was even better, so he took the whole family to see it. It was in the theaters for over a year and I lost track of how many times I went back after the thirty-somethingth re-watch.

46. Do you consider yourself a SW Fanboy or Fangirl?

I've never described myself as a fanboy or fangirl of anything.

47. Have you seen Fanboys? Favorite character and/or quote?

Haven't seen it.

48. Do you wish they would make 7, 8, and 9 or do you think they should be done with it?

I've always wanted it. Even when Lucas announced the prequels, I saw those as something we had to get through in order to have what I really wanted: the continuation of the story.

49. If they ever made 7, 8, and 9, do you think it should continue the Skywalker Legacy or use entirely new characters? Or something different?

Like Kelly said in his answers, it's not Star Wars without Skywalkers.

50. Do you watch The Clone Wars?

We just finished Season 2 as part of a re-watch of all the Star Wars movies and TV shows. The plan is to get through everything before Force Awakens. I wish the Jedi in it wouldn't conveniently forget to use their powers just to keep the plot moving, but it's mostly a great show so far. It helps a lot with Anakin's transition to the Dark Side and I'm curious to see if it'll actually make Revenge of the Sith more watchable. If nothing else though, The Clone Wars stands on its own as an excellent adventure series that understands what makes Star Wars great.

Wednesday, February 25, 2015

As I sat watching the last of The Hobbit trilogy of films I realized something. We take so much for granted in the 21st Century. Imagine if I had a time machine and could go back to 1936. I'd step out (fighting the desire to find a newsstand and buy copies of Weird Tales in pristine condition) and meet some fan of Fantasy (after a very long search) and we'd talk. We could discuss Lord Dunsany, perhaps the recently deceased Robert E Howard, or ER Eddison's The Worm Ouroboros. Then I'd mention something about vast orc armies and I'd get a strange stare. Of course, Tolkien's The Hobbit hasn't been published yet. My mistake.

But it isn't the word "orc" that is the problem. It's the entire concept of vast, epic battles between men and orcs that is the stumbling block. The Battle of Five Armies is the first of these. My 1936 companion may be ready for the idea, but he hasn't got it yet. I jump back into my time machine, whispering one beautiful word in his ear, "Hobbit," and disappear. (Unfortunately the experience of seeing me disappear in my time machine drives him to read Amazing Stories or Astounding instead and we lose him from the Fantasy pool. What can you do?)

Eighteen years later my machine takes me to see Tolkien give us more with The Lord of the Rings. Tolkien's vast ideas are starting to light new fires like Carroll Kendall's The Gammage Cup in 1959, with its army of mushroom warriors. I jump another ten years to see the campuses of America (along with an unauthorized paperback edition) drive Tolkien's popularity to the point where Led Zeppelin is singing of Gollum and Ringwraiths. We are approaching critical mass...

In 1972, Gary Gygax is about to sit down with a bunch of buddies and Dungeons & Dragons is on. Those stats-driven warriors need something to fight. Of course, it has to be a goblin. After Tolkien's estate and Gygax hash out the copyright of certain terms, the deal is done. Pairing this with the success in 1977 of the Tolkien clone, The Sword of Shannara, epic fantasy is now set to boil. The creation of Derivative Fantasy! Anybody can write of such creatures! The world of Fantasy now has its generic monster, the Orc. In any video game, any book, any RPG, the orc is the opponent in armor that warriors face everywhere.

But it wasn't always so. That is my point. The idea took a long time to get here. As scholars such as Michael Drout point out, it began in 1872 with a children's book by a Scottish minister. The book was The Princess and the Goblin by George Macdonald. Scholars and fans make a lot of noise about William Morris starting off the Modern Fantasy genre with his pseudo-Medieval novels like The Wood Beyond the World (1894), and he was vital in insuring that Fantasy would become a genre dominated by novels. But it is Macdonald that gave us the goblin foe; who gave Tolkien the leg up to write The Hobbit; who gave CS Lewis the inspiration to write of animal and monster armies in Narnia. Macdonald's tale of Curdie and the princess Irene seems quaint by today's epic, grand scale. A common boy and a restless princess discover a plot by the goblins to attack the castle, which eventually leads to an armed conflict. Despite the fight being appropriate for children, it did open the door to Fantasy tales in which humans are versed against an inhuman army. Eddison would use it to create two human armies in The Worm Ouroboros (calling them Demons and Witches), but it was Tolkien's The Hobbit that cemented the idea for all time.

And one hundred years later that, resulted in the genrification of the orc as common military assailant. World of Warcraft; Orcs Must Die!; the latest hack Tolkien-esque bestseller. It's everywhere and its not going away any time soon. For better or worse, Fantasy has an epic scale today. The quaint, personal-sized Fantasy tale, be it the glorious works of Thomas Burnett Swann or even the Howardian tale of the lone barbarian, is awash in a sea of orcs and battle. There's not much you can do...

For example, back around 1988, I met L Sprague de Camp at a convention in Calgary. I spoke with him about a project I had abandoned, that of converting his Novaria novels to an RPG setting. He thought I should keep at it, but I knew ultimately it wouldn't work. Why? No orcs. No elves. Novaria is a Fantasy world filled with humans. There are demons and magic, but all the armies are men. You can't fight the tide with your bare hands.

So there I sat this Christmas, watching what I felt was the best of the three Hobbit films, thinking: all Fantasy writers today have to make their peace with Tolkien and his orc armies. Either you accept them as part of what you are writing or you have to reject them and write something that is inherently anti-Tolkien. There is no middle ground any more. A book I read over the holiday made this even more evident to me. It was Conan the Invincible (1980) by Robert Jordan. In that rather pedestrian tale, Conan's enemy wizard has a race of scaly-skin henchmen called the S'Tarra. They are hidden in his castle fortress, breeding and preparing for the taking over of the world. Is it any surprise Jordan gave up writing Conans for pseudo-Tolkien in The Wheel of Time series?

Another author of note, one who shares Tolkien's double middle initials (Raymond Richard, not Ronald Reuel), is George RR Martin. Martin's Song of Fire and Ice shows a new ingenuity with this Tolkien dilemma. Martin has combined the two most commercially successful Science Fiction (Dune) and Fantasy (Lord of the Rings) franchises to create the Game of Thrones books. This sounds like I am disparaging him but this is far from the truth. I have the highest respect for GRRM. First off, for his amazing story writing before Game of Thrones with classics like "Way of Cross and Dragon" and "Sandkings," but secondly for his masterful control of character, which allows us to watch or read a story with dozens of distinct characters, each worthy of a tale of their own. So I glibly say "combined the political essence Dune and the fantastic world of LOTR," but go ahead; try it.

Really what George was doing was that thing we must all do as modern Fantasy writers. Dealing with Tolkien. I believe GRRM has chosen to accept Tolkien, and though we haven't seen much of it yet, "Winter is Coming." What does that mean? Orc (or White Walkers and Wildings) armies. Tolkien is coming and George has the cajones to make us wait through six fat books for it. Long live the orc! He's going to be with for some time yet.

GW Thomas has appeared in over 400 different books, magazines and ezines including The Writer, Writer's Digest, Black October Magazine and Contact. His website is gwthomas.org. He is editor of Dark Worlds magazine.

Thursday, February 12, 2015

"The Graveyard Rats" (Weird Tales, March 1936) by Henry Kuttner was a spectacular debut for a writer of horror. Though in later years Kuttner seemed embarrassed by the tale, it remains one of the creepiest stories to come out of the pulps. (One blogster claims it has been reprinted thirty-five times. I don't doubt it.) The plot follows Masson, a corrupt undertaker, who wars with the rats in the graveyard where he robs the dead of their plunder. When a particularly rich corpse is taken, Masson follows the culprits into their twisting tunnels. The battle is on. Masson, using his revolver, fights off the cat-sized rodents. The only problem is the rats are not alone, but under the control of ghoulish inhabitants. Masson flees back to the coffin from which he entered, only to find he got lost in the dark, and has gone to a different coffin! The rats close in and finish him off. The ending, claustrophobic and unrelenting as the rest of the story, seems to be the part readers remember best. Joe R Lansdale called it "a classic little booger tale" and certainly it was the inspiration for Stephen King's "Graveyard Shift" (along with Bram Stoker and HG Wells).

Now you'd expect such a pulp classic to have been adapted many times in the horror comics and you'd not be disappointed. The comics have given us four variations on Kuttner, sadly none giving the author credit.

"Rats Have Sharp Teeth" in The Vault of Horror #14 (EC Comics, August-September 1950), featuring art by Graham Ingels, has a made a number of changes. Masson is now Abner Tucker, an historian turned gravekeeper. Instead of digging from above, Tucker takes over the mansion next to the cemetery and uses tunnels to dig from below. The ghoulish ratmaster has been dropped and the ending made less gruesome, with the rats chewing away support beams and burying Tucker alive. This lack of grue is surprising for a pre-Comics Code EC Comic.

Adventures in Terror #9 (Marvel, April 1952) saw Dick Ayers draw "Ghouls Rush In." Masson has become body snatcher John Magnus. He proceeds to follow the rats who are stealing a rich corpse, but gets captured by the evil rodents. Instead of eating him, they make him one of them, and a rat-like Magnus continues his profession of robbing graves as a monster. The writer has blended his rats and ghouls into one creature.

Horrific #10 (Comic Media, March 1954) featured "Beneath the Grave," drawn by Rudy Palais. This time Masson is named Lars Swenson (Scandinavian again!) and he follows the tunnels and finds a large underground chamber where the bloated, bipedal rats are performing an evil rite around the body of a recently deceased woman. The rats see Swenson and their leader tells them to capture him. (The rats talk in this version.) The rest is pretty much as Kuttner wrote it except the ending. As Swenson finds himself trapped in the grave, the rats do not eat him. He cries, "Satan has come to collect my soul!" The master rat answers: "No? Just who do you think I am, Lars Swenson?"

"Rats" in Death Rattle v1 #3 (Kitchen Sink, 1975) was adapted and drawn by Mike Roberts in black and white. Again no credit is given to Kuttner but the adaptation is very faithful. The only change is from Masson to Mason. Roberts tells the story in rigid squares that perfectly mimic the tight feel of Kuttner's story. It was great to see the undead ghoul for a change. Death Rattle was an underground comic and there is a little gratuitous nudity, but in other regards the story is restrained and subtle, rather than in-your-face brash as many alternative press comics are.

Henry Kuttner lived until 1958. That means he could have seen three of these four comic adaptations. Whether he saw them or not, we don't know. Kuttner himself had written Green Lantern comics between 1944-1946. Despite this he never showed much interest in the comics format. It would be fascinating to know what he thought of these strange variations of his work.

Two other adaptations that I should mention are the TV movie Trilogy of Terror II (1996) by William F Nolan and Dan Curtis that twists the tale into a saga of a ruthless gold-digger (the only female version of Masson); and a very faithful radio version from the 2012 Suspense revival for Siriius XM Radio. Both of these are embedded below.

Tuesday, February 03, 2015

I don't remember if I've mentioned it before, but the next Kill All Monsters story to see print will be in color! Bill Crabtree (The 6th Gun) is a perfect fit for Jason's lines, as you can see in this sample.

It's still a bit early to give all the details yet, but this will be a one-off story that's connected to the main, bigger story of the graphic novel while taking place at a different time. We've got a new publisher, so the shorter story is intended to introduce the world of KAM to a whole new audience before we continue what we started in Ruins of Paris.

Stay tuned for more info. I'm not sure exactly when the big announcement will be made, but by my math it shouldn't be much longer. 2015 promises to be a big year for KAM.

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About Me

Michael May writes Kill All Monsters, a comic that he and artist Jason Copland created. He also co-hosts a few podcasts including Dragonfly Ripple (about nerd parenting), Mystery Movie Night (a movie review podcast that's also a game), Hellbent for Letterbox (about Westerns in cinema, TV, books, and comics), and Starmageddon (Star Trek and Star Wars).

Dark Horse Presents #12-14, featuring an all-new Kill All Monsters story, "The Ministry of Robots" by Michael May and Jason Copland. Color version only available in back issue bins, but you can read the complete, reformatted story in Kill All Monsters Omnibus, Volume 1.

"The Murderous Scarecrow;" short story in The Avenger: Roaring Heart of the Crucible. Available on Amazon and other fine bookstores.